A History of Russian Women's Writing 1820-1992

Catriona Kelly

A History of Russian Women's Writing 1820-1992

Catriona Kelly

Description

Russian women's writing is now attracting enormous interest both in the West and in Russia itself. This is the first one-volume history of the subject to appear in any language in modern times. Written from a bold feminist perspective, the book combines a broad historical survey with close textual analysis. Sections on women's writing in the periods 1820-1880, 1881-1917, 1917-1954, and 1953-1992 are followed by essays on individual writers. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including rare literary journals and almanacs, Catriona Kelly's account shows familiar figures such as Akhmatova, Tsevtaeva, and Tolstaya in a radical new context and brings to light a colorful gallery of fascinating but neglected writers including Elena Gan, Nadezhda Teffi, Natalya Baranskaya, and Nina Sadur. The text is supported by generous quotations from the Russian, all accompanied by English translations.

A History of Russian Women's Writing 1820-1992

Catriona Kelly

Table of Contents

Introduction: Not Written by a LadyA Note on Transliteration and Conventions1. The Feminine Pen and the Imagination of National Tradition, 1820-1880: Mariya Zhukova; Karolina Pavolva; Elena Gan2. Configurations of Authority: Feminism, Modernism, and Mass Culture 1881-1917: Olga Shapir; Nadezhda Teffi; Anna Akhmatova3. Class War and the Home Front: From the Revolution to the Death of Stalin, 1917-1953: Sofiya Parnok; Marina Tsvetaeva; Vera Bullich4. Who Wants to be a Man: De-Stalinizing Gender, 1954-1992: Natalya Baranskaya; Elena Shvarts; Olga Sedakova; Nina SadurBibliographyIndex of Russian Women Writers Cited; Main Index

A History of Russian Women's Writing 1820-1992

Catriona Kelly

Reviews and Awards

"Kelly's History will do for Russian literature what Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar's Norton Anthology of Writings by Women did for American and British women writers a decade ago. Much more than an informative summary, Kelly's book addresses some important debates. ... her purpose is accomplished, and the book is an excellently organized and readable chronology with enough attention paid to details to set the reader's curiosity and the critic's arguments going. ... It deserves to become a classic."--Signs

"Catriona Kelly's A History of Russian Women's Writing 1820-1992 stands out as the first large-scale study to combine a historian's attention to continuities with a feminist's eye for discontinuities and dissenting voices, resulting in a context-bound feminist criticism. ... Much of the material has not been previously translated into English ... Nor have many of the texts received much attention in Russia itself. ... Both the Anthology and the History explicitly foreclose the temptation to hail them as definitive reference works, but there is no doubt that both are landmark texts which will act as the touchstones of much future research." --Slavonica

"a magnificent and massive pioneering achievement. Both the history and the accompanying anthology are the product of wide-ranging, original research over several years; and the spoils she has brought back from her toils amply justify them. She remarks in her conclusion that her history can make no claims to definitiveness; it offers none the less an authoritative guide and map to a terrain that is familiar to few." Times Literary Supplement